Romance reader and writer shares her thoughts on what she's reading, what she's writing, and what she's finding tangential to romance reading and writing.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Romance Buzzwords: A Game Recycled

When I was blogging as a Vagabond, we had great fun playing the Romance Buzzwords game. I’m recycling it here with some minor changes. The OED defines a buzzword as “a catchword or expression currently fashionable.” I think you will agree that the fifteen words on the list qualify as “romance buzzwords.”

So, here’s the game. List a title of a romance you have read that uses the word. Just to keep us all honest, we will include authors’ names as well. You may use a variant form of the word (for example, scandal/scandalous/scandalizing). The more titles, the merrier the game; but if you can think of only a few, share those. You don’t have to list fifteen. To encourage you, I’ll add that when the Vagabonds played the game (with a slightly different list), Julie found a single author who had used all the words.

The only rules are that the title must use one of the words from the list, and it must be a book you have read or plan to read. All of my examples are from my 2010 list, so most of them fall in the “plan to read” category. I could have listed other titles from the list for most of the words.

To make it more fun, a random poster will win a book with one of our list words in the title.

Oh, I love buzzwords, and thank you for including my mistress in the list! I'm done seeing and reading wicked in titles, altho my Margaret Rowe Jan 2011 release is Any Wicked Thing, LOL. But there's a reason for that---it's not The Wicked Earl's Midnight Temptation or something, LOL.And you forgot Rake and Devil!!!

List a title of a romance you have read that uses the word… Julie found a single author who had used all the wordsJANGA! Don’t get me started on lists! You realize that I’m going to wake up in the middle of the night and start Babbling to my husband “Bride Duke Kiss Lady Love Magic Mistress Night Passion Scandal Secret Seduction Surrender …”To which he will respond “WhaWhat WTH my Bride? You want the Duke to Kiss his Lady Love? Listen here oh Magic Mistress, it wouldn’t be a Scandal if you kept your Night Passion a Secret. Wake me up when its morning … maybe then I’ll Surrender to your Seduction.”

Serious answer? IMO these particular words are so popular because are associated with classic Romance Lit plotlines. The words are provocative and evocative . Which helps to get a reader’s interest . On top of that these words are rather sensual sounding to the listener. Say the words out loud. Secret … Passion … Surrender. Those words literally sound seductive.

"Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die." — Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life)

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Just Janga is not primarily a review site, but I will sometimes review books that I have read and enjoyed. I purchase many of the books I review, but I sometimes receive free copies (print or electronic) of books I review from authors or publishers (often via NetGalley). For purposes of FTC disclosure, visitors to this site should assume that review books have been provided at no cost to the reviewer.